crossfire or better card

[Contivity]

I have HD4870 on X58 chipset motherboard. The board only has PCIE2.0 in 16x/16x/4x format. Would I benefit in buying ~$200-$225 graphic card or 2X ~$100-$150 cards in Crossfire?

Can I use my old card to add a third monitor (not for the gaming part)?

 

[JUICEhunter]

I have a 780ti on a 2.0 PCIE2.0 and get very similar benchmarks to what I read about on-line. What is your CPU? The will determine if you would bottleneck a $200-$300 GPU.

 

[Sonu Dutta]

I would not recommend crossfire as it has some issues, its better if you go for a single card nvidia,gtx 780ti is a good card.
or you may state your budget so that i can help you better

 

[Contivity]

My CPU is i7 920 Bloomfield (one of the first generation of i7), it's a quad-core 2.66GHz. My max budget is 300$, but would rather spend in the 200-250 range if possible. I mostly play GW2 on a 1080p resolution.

If it can be done, I also want to set it as a 3 monitor setup without spending more than the new card (i.e. by using my old card as additional output) for work (not graphic intensive at all).

Thank you guys so much for the advice.

 

[JUICEhunter]

3 monitor setup is almost as taxing as 4k, Get a high end GPU, 770 or 280X would be a nice jump in performance and not bottleneck at all. I would even say if you want to spend a little more I saw a reference 290 on newegg.com for $350 that would be a perfect card with your CPU!

 

[boyagin]

It's better to go for a new card, not necessarily Nvidia or AMD.

And yes, you can still use your old card for an extra display regardless what brand of your new card is (even todays cards support up to 3 monitors).